Bail-out

NO NO NO NO A thousand times NO. That was the mandate from the people regarding the financial bail-out. But, our congressional representatives (those who are elected to represent) played lobbying games until they voted and passed the legislation requested by a President who pushed the panic button. Now, the auto industry wants help. They proved they need the money when the top dogs of the big 3 arrived in Washington DC via their own private jets!!!! They could have at least shared. Per Jay Leno, "even the AIG people were asking, what were they thinking?"

"Guess what? With hardly any discussion, and certainly none of the wrangling that took place originally, the Treasury has essentially told us that, in spite of the dire warnings used to sell the plan, “Never mind — we don’t really need to do that.”

"After the frenzied attempt by the Bush administration and Congress to "do anything" to abate the global financial crisis, and committing trillions of taxpayer funds and federal guarantees, without oversight and without a plan, it is time for Congress to stop funding new financial experiments. It is time for America to take stock of what we have learned and plan for the wiser use of precious federal funds and guarantees by the Obama administration."

The scare tactic this time is loss of jobs. Did you know that the last joblessness report revealed that unemployment was at the highest level since 9/11/2001?

As noted above, the money allocated by Congress is not being used as intended. But, this should not be a surprise as Congress apparently did not set specific guidelines and this was passed just after we all found out about the AIG retreat! Somewhere in the hallowed halls of the Capitol, someone had to think about that and consider attaching some strings (instead of pork) to the legislation.

My question is: how long is the line going to get? How many industries were mismanaged when they thought all was well? How many will be seeking government funding? In my humble opinion, the tax paying public needs to write, call, e-mail their congressional representatives and tell them NO NO NO. Enough of our money is being spent to help the rich. It is a basic Robin Hood gone all wrong, robbing from the poor to coddle the rich.

If I make an error or mismanage my finances or decide to try out some newfangled way of bookkeeping and then find myself in a financial "crisis", can I get a nice little bail-out from congress?? Hell, no. According to our federal government I will be paying to aid and abet the bigwigs on Wall Street.

You might want to check out Google Alerts: pork in the bail-out plan. Lots of good articles. And, consider contacting your congressional representatives and let them know how you feel about the pending bail-out of the auto industry.